China exerts control from a nondescript office on Dublin’s Capel Street – The Irish Times
This article is part of the China Targets project, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) involving 42 media partners, including The Irish Times, into transnational oppression by Chinese authorities. See also: Corrosive and dishonest and An intimidated Chinese citizen in Ireland.
In April 2016, 18 months after the launch of China’s “strike hard” campaign against the Muslim population in Xinjiang in northwestern China, one of the senior officials involved visited Capel Street in Dublin.
The deputy director of Beijing’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), Tan Tianxing, came to Dublin’s growing Chinese area to unveil a new resource for the Chinese community in Ireland.
The Overseas Chinese Service Centre (Dublin) would provide employment, educational, integration and other supports, and be “a warm home where Chinese people in Ireland can work together and help each other”, according to its website.
Six months earlier, Tan had been in Ürümqi, capital of Xinjiang, where a huge wave of surveillance and repression was gathering force in a region many Turkic residents prefer to call East Turkestan.
“Ethnic minority compatriots” living overseas would be a key focus of the campaign, Tan told a meeting in Ürümqi of the Xinjiang Overseas Chinese Affairs Special Leading Group, according to a report by the Xinhua news agency.
The campaign against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang would eventually result in more than a million people, including children, incarcerated in what the Chinese authorities called vocational and educational camps.
The repression also took place outside China, with many in the targeted communities who were living abroad, including in Ireland, shutting off contact with family members back home for fear it would cause them to be sent to the camps.
At the time of his visits to Xinjiang and Dublin, Tan was deputy director of the OCAO, then a state body but soon to be absorbed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as its leader Xi Jinping sought to assert ever-greater control over all aspects of society, including China’s international diaspora.
“In 2017, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping said he wanted to utilise the 60 million-plus Chinese diaspora to serve the CCP’s political and economic agenda,” says Anne-Marie Daly, a professor of political science at Canterbury University in New Zealand.
That same year the OCAO was taken over by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an element of the CCP that the late Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, once referred to as a “magic weapon”.
“The party has a long-established policy of seeking to manage the overseas Chinese diaspora through United Front organisations,” says Daly.
“The CCP leadership views the overseas Chinese diaspora as both a resource and a threat. The CCP seeks to utilise overseas Chinese along with Chinese companies – both People’s Republic of China-based and ethnic-Chinese international businesses – to advance the party’s strategic agenda,” she said.
The Irish Times investigated links between the CCP and Ireland as part of the China Targets project, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) involving 42 media partners into transnational oppression.
Following the party’s absorption of the OCAO, Tan was appointed deputy director of the UFWD.
“The United Front builds networks that subtly guide the political and cultural discourse of Chinese diaspora communities – and in doing so, it aims to shape how China is perceived abroad, influence local policy environments, and ultimately ensure that loyalty to the party trumps local integration or dissent,” says Dubliner Alexander Davey, an analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies, in Berlin, Germany.
During his 2016 visit to Ireland, Tan visited Chinese academics at University College Dublin, according to the website of the UCD Food Refrigeration & Computerised Food Technology centre.
‘Police station’ in Dublin
He also went to 27 Capel Street to officially unveil the service centre, which had been opened a few months earlier, at a ceremony attended by the then Chinese ambassador to Ireland, Xu Jianguo, according to the centre’s website.
The centre “is supported by the government, operates in accordance with the law, is run by overseas Chinese, and is registered with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office”, it said.
There are varying estimates of the size of the Chinese community in Ireland, but they number in the tens of thousands, with many of the more recent immigrants coming from Fujian province in southeast China. Many older immigrants came from Hong Kong, where the population enjoyed greater political freedom than people from mainland China until the 2019 crackdown by the Beijing regime.
The service centre on Capel Street was set up in the offices of the Fujian Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, also then at 27 Capel Street, which was in turn getting direction from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in Beijing, according to the centre’s website.
In 2019, the centre notified the Chinese community in Ireland that it was offering a visa screening service. Visa applications could be sent to the Capel Street office for review, before being sent on to the embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.
In March 2022, the centre – by then on the top floor of 45 Capel Street – announced it was hosting an overseas station for the police in Fuzhou, capital of the Fujian province.
“In order to thoroughly implement general secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on overseas Chinese affairs” and to “firmly promote the internationalisation of public security organs”, a “Fuzhou Police Overseas Chinese Affairs Service Station” was being established, the centre said on WeChat.
The Dublin station was already dealing with “overseas identity card” replacements and driving licence issues, it said.
When news broke about a Chinese police presence on Capel Street later that year, the Department of Foreign Affairs complained to the Chinese embassy, which then issued a statement saying the station had ceased all activities and had not been involved in law enforcement activities.
A report at the time from a human rights group, Safeguard Defenders, said the Dublin station was part of a global network, with some of the stations being used to “persuade” Chinese emigrants to return home to face criminal charges, using pressure on family members back in China.
‘Persuasion’ tactics
A report by the same group last year, Chasing Fox Hunt, includes a review of the historical use of transnational “persuasion” tactics by the Chinese police, and refers to a case in 2011 where a man from Fujian who was living in Ireland agreed to return home to face charges of robbery after receiving 19 telephone calls from the police in Fujian, who had been making regular visits to his family back in China.
The case was reported on at the time in the Chinese press.
The WeChat posting announcing the opening of the police station on Capel Street in 2022 included a photograph of people attending the official launch inside what appears to be a small room.
Those pictured included Dao Zhong Chen (56), from Clonsilla, Dublin 15, a businessman and shareholder in Heng Hui Ltd, the Athlone, Co Westmeath-based company that runs the Super Asia Foods chain of supermarkets. One of the chain’s outlets occupies the ground floor of 27 Capel Street.
Chen is a director of the Overseas Chinese Service Centre (Dublin) and a founder of the Fujian Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, according to the chamber’s website. Heng Hui foods is the only member company named by the chamber.
Also in the photograph was Huade (Parry) Chen (46), from Knocklyon, Dublin, who is president of the Irish Fujian Business Association, president of the Fujian General Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, director of the Dublin Chinese Assistance Centre, and director of the China Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification, according to the chamber’s website.
Reunification in this context means, among other matters, democratic Taiwan coming under the control of Beijing.
“The Irish Peaceful Reunification Promotion Association will continue to firmly support the Communist Party of China and actively respond to the call of the Party and the motherland,” the group said in a statement in 2021 to mark 100 years since the founding of the CCP.
The statement was published by the Beijing-based China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification on its website.
“The Communist Party of China can always lead the Chinese people to break through the heavy blockades of the West ... which fully demonstrates the powerful superiority of the socialist democratic system led by the Communist Party of China!” the Irish group said.
[ Government urged to raise Uyghurs with visiting Chinese foreign ministerOpens in new window ]
It would “oppose any form of separatist activities”, enhance consensus in the Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Macao and overseas Chinese communities, “strengthen co-operation with international friends, tell the Chinese story well, tell the story of the Communist Party of China well, [and] establish a positive image for the Party and the motherland on the international stage”, it said.
Huade Chen is chief executive of Easy2Go Logistics, based in Ballycoolin, Dublin 15, which provides a “vital bridge for Ireland-China trade”, according to its website. The business had 17 employees and made a pretax profit of €1 million in 2023, according to its latest accounts.
The Fujian General Chamber of Commerce in Ireland, which promotes business and trade, has a nationwide structure, organises social and educational events, and regularly hosts visiting government and party officials from China, according to its website.
In May 2023 Huade Chen attended the 10th world Overseas Chinese Association Friendship Conference in Beijing, where the theme was “Integrating China and the West to Promote the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity”.
At the conference, Shi Taifeng, UFWD head on the party’s Central Committee, told delegates that overseas Chinese communities could be “a vital force in building a community with a shared future for humanity”, according to official state media.
A shared future for humanity is a phrase associated with Xi’s vision for a changed global order where China and the CCP play a more central role.
The concept of a community with a shared future for humanity inherits the ideal of a “community of free individuals” from Marxism, and it deeply aligns with the over 2,000-year-old Chinese aspiration for an ideal society where “the common good is pursued for all”, according to a lengthy profile of Xi published by Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, in 2023.
Just because they have closed that police station does not mean it has gone away. There is no doubt but they [the Beijing regime] are operating at a sub-diplomatic level, all the time
— Barry Ward TD
The biennial conference attended by Huade Chen is organised by two bodies, the OCAO and the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC), both of which are described by China analysts as UFWD bodies.
ACFROC is one of seven key UFWD organisations associated with “foreign interference” (another is the Chinese Scholars and Students Association, which has branches in all Irish universities), according to The Party Speaks for You, a 2020 paper published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Delegates from Ireland
There were two other delegates from Ireland at the Beijing conference.
One was Yupeng Liu, chairman of the Industry and Commerce Association of Ireland (ICAOI), which promotes trade between Ireland and China. The members of the association’s standing committee include the former Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin Central, Cyprian Brady, and Dominic Dillane, head of the school of tourism and hospitality at Technological University Dublin (TUD), which has educational links with universities in China.
Liu is a lecturer in computer science at TUD and executive director of EKO Integrated Services in Ennis, Co Clare. Two other members of the executive board of EKO are on the ICAOI’s standing committee.
EKO, according to its website, has seen “exponential growth over the past 10 years”, is involved in several sectors including property, distribution and green energy, and has established business networks in China and Europe.
Like Huade Chen’s Easy2Go, EKO was involved in the importation of much-needed personal protective equipment from China during the Covid pandemic.
Asked about his attendance at the Beijing conference, Liu said he went to hear a speech by Dhanin Chearavanont, a Chinese-Thai billionaire and chairman of the largest private company in Thailand, the CP Group.
“I was invited by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council [the Chinese government] and I accepted the invitation with the intention of developing business contacts and networks,” he told The Irish Times by email in response to queries.
We firmly oppose any stigmatisation of legitimate services provided to Chinese citizens abroad and urge responsible media to avoid contributing to unwarranted suspicion or tension by misrepresenting facts
— Overseas Chinese Service Office spokesman
“I am not a member of the CCP so I would not be the appropriate person to provide the detailed insights you may require,” he said, in relation to the UFWD and the OCAO.
The other delegate from Ireland at the conference was Chaosheng Zhang, president of the Irish Chinese Professors and Scholars Association.
Zhang, professor of geography and director of the International Network for Environment and Health at University College Galway, said he was not particularly knowledgeable about the objectives of the UFWD and the OCAO and did not believe the Beijing conference had anything to do with implementing CCP policy outside China.
“I don’t think so. I am not very clear on those issues,” he told The Irish Times in a phone interview.
[ China seeks to make common cause with European Union over Trump’s tariffsOpens in new window ]
“I don’t think that is happening. [The conference] is just about getting people talking and communicating. I don’t think there is too much politics.”
Efforts to contact the Overseas Chinese Service Centre in Dublin, the Fujian Business Association, Dao Zhong Chen and Huade Chen were unsuccessful.
The Capel Street building
The plaque outside the door at 45 Capel Street advertising the Fuzhou police station disappeared soon after the controversy in 2022, but there are still plaques advertising the Overseas Chinese Service Centre and the Fujian Business Association. Similarly, there are plaques for both bodies, and for the Chinese Restaurant Association of Ireland, outside the door on the third floor of the building.
However, a woman in the offices of the restaurant association said there was no one there from the other two bodies and that she thought they were no longer based in the building.
“Just because they have closed that police station does not mean it has gone away,” said Fine Gael TD Barry Ward, who is co-chair of Ireland’s representation on the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a cross-party body of parliamentarians from democratic countries.
“There is no doubt but they [the Beijing regime] are operating at a sub-diplomatic level, all the time.”
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China “grew out of a developing consensus that the assumptions that once underpinned our engagement with Beijing no longer correspond to reality”, its website says.
The reason why China operates on a “sub-diplomatic level”, according to Ward, is that it seeks to operate as a reasonable member of the international community, while at the same time ignoring international norms and international law.
“I think China, as a country, operates this way all round the world. They are constantly trying to play both sides of the street,” Ward said.
“When you are running an authoritarian state like China, you constantly have to maintain tentacles everywhere. You have to be on top of your populace around the world, particularly if they are not doing what you want them to do. That is what that police station on Capel Street was about.”
Chinese embassy response
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Dublin said the “so-called Fujian police station” was in fact a service agency established to help Chinese citizens in Ireland with administrative matters.
[ Chinese overseas police station in Dublin ordered to shutOpens in new window ]
“The term police station is misleading and creates unnecessary misunderstanding,” he said.
The Overseas Chinese Service Office was “established spontaneously by members of the overseas Chinese community”, the spokesman said.
“Just as Irish government ministers regularly engage with their Irish community abroad, the Chinese government also encourages and commends overseas Chinese who promote the spirit of solidarity and actively integrating into local society,” he said.
“We firmly oppose any stigmatisation of legitimate services provided to Chinese citizens abroad and urge responsible media to avoid contributing to unwarranted suspicion or tension by misrepresenting facts.”
On the UFWD, the embassy spokesman said it sought to promote co-operation between the CCP and non-party members.
The United Front never “interferes in the internal affairs of other countries and never exports ideology or social systems”, he said.
Invited to respond to comments made by Barry Ward and other China commentators quoted in this report, the spokesman said they were “individuals known for their consistently biased positions against China”.
“The unilateral and selective use of their opinions, while disregarding broader, more objective perspectives, suggests that the article may start from a predetermined conclusion, and then seek supporting evidence,” he said.
The embassy found it “difficult to see how this approach aligned with journalistic principles of objectivity and fairness”, the spokesman said.
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